The 2nd Half Begins With Much Of The Same

Last week as my best friend, Trey, and I walked out of the casino, I lit a cigarette while we headed towards his car, and I asked him:

What’s more frustrating when you play blackjack, making a good hand out of a 14 or 15 and still losing, or just losing the hand before you got your hopes up in the first place?

When it comes to the Rangers and scoring runs, that is the question … is it more frustrating to get runners on base without scoring, or just not have any runners on base in the first place?

On Friday night, in Texas’s first game back from the week-long All Star Break, the team reached base 12 times in 9 innings; there were 9 hits, 2 walks and 1 HBP. However, as has seemingly been the story for the entirety of the 2013 season, the offense went 0-10 with men in scoring position — leaving 10 men on base in the process — and inevitably scored its only run on a Craig Gentry sac-fly in the bottom of the 4th.

The loss is the Rangers’ 5th in 6 games, though with Oakland losing 4-1 in Anaheim, the division lead remains at only 2.0 games.

Over the last few days there’s been a barrage of hot stove speculation saying the Rangers were looking to acquire Cubs right-handed starter, Matt Garza, in time for him to start on Saturday (instead of Ross Wolf).

Right now, it doesn’t appear like there’s much progress in that department, and, as Jeff Sullivan from FanGraphs writes vis a vis Garza:

On talent alone, Garza wouldn’t be a big upgrade over [Yu Darvish, Derek Holland, Matt Harrison, Alexi Ogando and Colby Lewis]. He’s not as good as his little ERA.

Later on, Sullivan also adds:

As much as Garza carries around some name value, he’s not a top-of-the-line starter. He’s a starter who gets talked about a lot, and who throws hard. The magnitude of his actual impact would probably be smaller than the magnitude of the perception of his impact.

Sometimes I feel like I’m sort of a crazy person when it comes to baseball, but that’s more to do with the fact that — if Twitter is any kind of indication — most people don’t even come close to agreeing with me on most topics. Since Sullivan’s article is directly consistent with my makeshift analysis of the potential Matt Garza trade, it makes me feel like a rational member of society again. At least for now.

Tonight Ross Wolf (2.14 ERA, 4.62 xFIP) takes on Baltimore’s Miguel Gonzalez (3.48 ERA, 4.29 xFIP) for Game 2 of the return weekend series. I’m not a greedy 23 year-old, but is two out of three too much to ask?

And yes, I did just manage to unconsciously use all three forms of one word in a sentence.